Journeying through the emotional migrations of women living in the in-between

In Hilal Isler’s gripping debut story collection, Har Mar, women in the early twenty-first century navigate the complex spaces between countries, families, languages, and selves. Isler’s characters are all on the verge of something—success, rebellion, revelation—and they want to disappear as much as they want to be seen. Moving back and forth between Turkey and the United States, these stories trace migrations both physical and emotional: a nanny plots to flee the wealthy family she cares for in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul; in Har Mar, a quiet mall tucked in the suburbs of Minneapolis, a bookseller escapes her grief in a complicated relationship with a wig retailer; an actress is hired by a famous American novelist to portray her at public events.

The women in Har Mar don’t always make sound decisions, and they’re not trying to be heroes. But they are reaching—imperfectly, but fiercely—for connection, truth, and home. With moving prose and a deep sense of longing, this collection explores what it means to grow up in the margins, to live in translation, and to build a life at the edge of belonging.
 

HILAL ISLER teaches at the University of Texas. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s, New York Magazine, The Believer, The Baltimore Review, The Paris Review online, and elsewhere. She is a 2023 McKnight Fellow in Creative Prose and lives with her family in Austin.

Khadijah Number Two 
Arzum
Kings 
Mister Morning Barista 
Farhana, Please
Scorpion  
Honey 
Har Mar
The Lambs 
The Honeymooner
The Keys 
Nothing for Something 
A Rare and Wonderful Man 
The American Way 
Power Couple 
Scattered Chances
Acknowledgements